TV evolves - the next moves

It's all change in the world of TV. The move to digital broadcasts has indeed been the catalyst for further changes and mutiple alternative delivery channels ( well over the internet ).

Having been one of the hard done by 2002 vintage Tivo fans in the UK who watched the USA incarnation move onward with features and functionality I have longed for some PVR catch up time. Well it's all happening now.

Having pioneered public free internet delivery of catch up missed TV on the Player service. The BBC is now making this great utility available on multiple platforms. The trailblazing video on demand catch-up service BBC iPlayer service moves out to Playstaion, Wii and soon Freesat HD.

Media centre software is a popular developer flavor, with Mac+FrontRow, Xbox+XBMC, PC + Media Centre as well as multi platform Plex all fighting for sofa based eye balls. Just having a player with codecs just doesn't cut it any more. The brilliance of the iPlayer is to brand the delivery player and not just the content. Where ever iPlayer turns up that's a dime to the BBC.

Tivo comes back to the UK as the set top box for Virgin Media. It is possible for a product to be launched both before and after the market window that Sky+ has saturated ? This may be a play for Virgin to break out of it's cabled getto. Get a great box out there and people will buy it for the service not just the wire it comes down.

The outsiders are Fetch TV service offers more than just iPlayer incorporating true video movies on demand into a set side box and UK Telco giant BT Vision TV on demand offering.

With PCs and Macs with humble USB sticks reaching for the airwaves along with YouTube going premium there is, as always, more TV than hours in the day.

Gannett

Uk Tivo Compared against a Humax Foxsat PVR

I used to have a Uk Series 1 Thompson built Tivo with Sky subscription and now I have a Humax Freedsat-HDR.

Lets compare some features.....

See http://www.spikynorman.dsl.pipex.com/posted/Humax_PVR_V_Uk_Tivo.pdf

Conclusions

The series 1 Tivo developed over the years since its release in 2001; the vibrant user community and speciality dealers helped modify the box with new hard drives up from twin drive 40GB to single 320GB, Ethernet, Cache card for faster EPG searching, Web browsing, Mode 0, remote access etc, all helped keep interest alive.

The Humax is a great box and wins on its HD capability and ease access via USB port and slim light form factor. The Humax could still learn a trick or two from the highly evolved Tivo. The most pressing areas for improvement for the Foxsat is the way the menus are accessed, a single menu access point and ability to play, delete, rename and examine from the same list of files are desperately needed. Tivo also has a single menu access and far, far better search the EPG functionality. The Freestat service needs more channels of course but pound for pound for me the Humax is now the way forward.

Gannett